Interview With The Founders - Part 1!

Much like the great Founding Fathers etched into the side of Mount Rushmore, the founding partners of Escape Asylum have been immortalised by their creativity, once we find a big enough rock in Leicester we will commission some life size sculptures.

Pioneers in their own right and blazing the trail for future escape rooms to prosper we feel it is only fair to bring you a little piece of their minds.

So far they have kept a low profile, elusive characters as they seem a mythology has began to build around their existence, who has seen them? Have they really seen them? Where's the proof? 

DO THEY EVEN EXIST?!

Their names are apparently Dan Walford and Selina Topp, both names being an anagram for "Creative Genius", coincidence? I think not.

So today, after months of detective work and countless hours waiting outside the Escape Asylum premises in St Martins Square we finally managed to catch 2 people claiming to be Dan and Selina.  We took the opportunity to ask them a few questions and see what 2018 has in store.

We will make this in to a 2 part interview, starting today with Dan and finishing off with the optimistic words of Selina. So without further delay let's jump straight into it!

Dan Walford, born in Nottingham sometime in the 90s, a keen lover of cars, Arsenal football club, and Mexican themed dinner parties.

His thick midlands accent really comes through as we speak, edging ever so slightly more northern the more excited he gets, at times sounding like he has been dragged out of the Yorkshire Dales.  We order a couple of pints of wine, I thought this would loosen him up a bit as he seemed on edge, like a coiled spring ready to attack. 

As you can imagine it is a stressful business keeping Leicester's favourite escape room moving forward.  Stress seems to be sliding off Dan like water off a ducks back. He admits he likes to unload his stress while in the gym, an avid gym goer he claims he visits twice a day 7 days a week, reaching an almost unimaginable level of fitness he shouts about his prowess "I could take anyone in this place, I'm deadlifting 20kg now" at this point we saw the rage in his eyes and decided to stay on his good side, any man that can lift a bag of sand unaided is a threat in our eyes.

Famous in Nottingham for his extravagant FIFA tournaments Dan has become somewhat of a playboy since moving into his penthouse apartment, at one recent party it was reported that Dan had forced a member of parliament to eat a bar of soap in revenge for giving "Asylum" a 4 star review, when asked for his take on what happened a cold stare glazed over his face, chilling to look at he simply whispered "Needless to say, I had the last laugh".

Of an evening Dan says he likes to relax in his bath robe while drinking port, an alcohol connoisseur he boasts quite the collection!  Some would say the 100 bottle strong collection relays the image of a problem drinker, but since giving up cigarettes vices are few and far between in his life, unfortunately willpower is in short supply as he is drawn to the red lights like a moth to a flame.

Recently he made the tough decision to replace Escape Asylum's debut game "Hostage", it wasn't a decision he took lightly, admitting he shed a few tears in the privacy of his own home.  He compared it to his own child "Hostage was and still is my baby, my first born, I have a picture of the floor plan hanging above my bed.  I knew one day the moment would come but I like to think of Hostage being in transition rather than dead, maybe it has gone to University and who knows, perhaps

 it will come home one day with a new lease of life!"

Without reading too much into his words we have concluded that we may not have seen the last of Hostage, perhaps it could make a return???

Asked if this was he first brush with the media Dan lent back in his chair, shot me a wink, took a big gulp of wine, and said "I've been on international TV, I'm a superstar" a world exclusive here in this blog as we reveal the media past of Dan Walford.  During the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami Dan was stationed out in Thailand to cover what is happening with his assistant, a young woman with hope in her eyes and the promise that Dan would make her a Hollywood hit, sadly her career didn't take off but a law suit of soul destroying favours and broken promises remains ongoing.  His glowing red face portraying the despair of the situation, offering some supportive words to the locals and distributing aid, he was hailed as a hero upon his return to Nottingham and even won United Nations "Englishman Abroad of the Year" award.

These days Dan can be mostly be found somewhere on the A46 travelling between his bachelor pad and his office in Leicester.  His Bosnian heritage plays an important but subtle role in his life, he attributes his humble nature to his upbringing.  Born into a thriving footwear business he was on the production line at the age 2, a family business creating knock off Lonsdale boots for a popular UK sports shop "Walfordić Sneakers" were Bosnia's biggest exporter.  At the tender age of 3 Dan made a decision that would shape his future. During the Bosnian-Serb conflict his convoy was ambushed, after being captured by Serb forces he was locked in a small room with nothing but his shoe laces, a clove of garlic, and a saucer of milk.
He broke out of the room in exactly 60 minutes.
To this day he has never said how he escaped the room and despite hundreds of detectives checking the room no evidence has ever been found, he promises to take his secret to the grave.

 Putting the trauma of the past behind him and taking his new found experiences to the welcoming shores of England Dan decided to prosper, forging a name for himself in the seedy world of credit scores and pay terminals before a chance meeting with a 19 year old called Selina changed his life forever, but her story is for another day.

For now though we will let Dan rest, we feel he has exhausted himself by pouring his heart out to us, we relax now in gentle small talk as he drinks wine straight from the bottle.  As we head back to Blog HQ we can't help but wonder, was that even Dan?